I need to echo this post by Sylvia regarding the Hope Witsell suicide and how we treat “sluts” in our society. Hope Witsell, a 13 year old girl, sent a phone picture of her naked breast to a guy she liked. It got spread across her school and neighbouring schools. She was punished by her school, her parents and ridiculed by her peers. She hanged herself in her room with a pink scarf.

Of course it wasn’t a slut-shaming, woman-hating, sex-hating culture that divides young women into “good” (virginal) and “bad” (fallen) and allowed a 13-year-old girl to believe that she had ruined her life forever by showing a boy her tits.

No, it was her “impetuous move” and somehow also the dangers of the INTERNET (even though the internet was not involved, except in that her internet access, probably one of her major sources of social support, was taken away by her “churchgoing family” as a punishment for an act that they had no goddamn fucking idea what it even was or what technology it used).

Huffington Post also has a very good article on this issue.

As the sad, sad story of Hope Witsell shows, there shouldn’t be any distinction made between those who deserve a bad reputation and those who don’t. No girl deserves to be called a “slut.” After all, when was the last time a sexually active boy was punished by his school or harassed by his peers? Dividing “sluts” into the innocent and guilty reinforces the idea that male sexuality is normal while female sexuality is deviant at worst, defiant at best. Look what happens when this thinking is taken to its extreme.

I couldn’t agree more. I myself was bullied badly at my school because I’d had the nerve to have a private discussion with a friend regarding masturbation, and admitted that I in fact had done it. I had guys shouting insults with regards to my sexuality after me on a daily basis for three years. I tried refusing to go to school but my mother wouldn’t allow it.

Was it stupid of me to trust another person with something so private? It would appear so. It didn’t even occurr to me that talking about masturbation would cause me years of grief and torment, and why would it? Thankfully, I was raised by a smart and supportive woman who told me that there was nothing wrong with me. What I had admitted to was a natural thing, and nothing to be ashamed of. I dread to think how I’d managed to get through those three years in that school if my mother had been a less open minded person.

I love you, mom.